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Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Recovering Resentment........

I don’t normally focus on my recovery regarding alcohol. Because to me, alcohol is a non-issue in my life. Tim does not drink, my family (most anyway) don’t drink, and most of my friends that do drink do so in moderation.

I found the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous at the ripe old age of 29. It was a long road of denial to get there, but I did find recovery back then. I was sober for 7 years, with a one year hiatus from sobriety and then back to AA. So I have been alcohol free since Father’s Day of 2001. They say that once you have a “slip”, you lose all of your sobriety. You have to start counting from your last drink. Father’s Day, 2001. However, those 7 previous years in AA, before my “slip” I did have sobriety. And I had it GOOD! I jumped into AA with both feet that first time back on August 29th, 1992. I got a sponsor, joined a home group, made coffee, went on speaking commitments, and surrounded myself with others in recovery. I won’t get into that one year of insanity, when I thought that I had the disease of alcoholism licked. I can say that at the end of that blackout drinking, I found myself exactly where I was 8 years prior. Alone, afraid, coming out of a blackout, not knowing where I was, where I had been, etc.

The second round of AA was a little more difficult. Not because I thought I wasn’t alcoholic, but because I didn’t really care. However, during that one year, I did continue to go to AA, raise my hand and tell everyone at my homegroup that I was “coming back” after a slip. Yet I continued to drink.

It will be 7 years of constant sobriety on Sunday. I have since stopped going to AA. However, I choose to still practice those principals in all of my affairs. Regardless of whether AA is for you or not, those 12 Steps are certainly a wonderful guideline to how one should live their life. The program is a wonderful foundation for anyone who seeks recovery.

The reason I do bring up AA and alcoholism is because I have a resentment today. All of my co-workers decided that they would meet up after work at a local bar. No one invited me. Yes, 2 people DO know that I don’t drink and reason why I don’t. Therefore, paranoia set in. Do the others know? Is that the reason I was the only person in a group of 15 people that wasn’t asked to go along? No one was whispering about the plans. And Tim insists that I am just being paranoid. But I still have this left out, square peg in a round hole, empty and paranoid sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Yes, I go to bars. Yes, I know some people in recovery frown upon that. But for me, today, there is no temptation to drink. I’d like to think that I have aquired some common sense along these past 16 years. I cannot drink. I blackout and make a total jerk-off out of myself. I’d like to think that I wouldn’t be tempted into that feeling of waking in the morning wondering how much of an asshole I made out of myself in front of my co-workers. Me? No thank you. I made an ass out of myself without alcohol. I don’t need to add to my daily dose of humility.

So, I won’t mention my resentment at work tomorrow. Nor will I ask how the party went for all the hung-over and rude people I work with. I will remain obviously quiet and see if anyone catches on. Or will someone surprise me and just ask why I didn’t go with them? Maybe it was just an oversight. But if you ever were to meet me, you could soon realize that I am very HARD TO FORGET!